Before Jasmine could answer the second half of the previous line of questioning, Sarah added another query. ‘But the city didn’t vanish, so why didn’t the people eventually get the idea that the gods were wrong?’
Jasmine smiled. ‘No one said anything about vanishing. This only implies a belief that the city was doomed. And it was.’ She pointed to the far edge of the pictograph. Instead of a straight line, the border was drawn as a series of tall waves.
Suddenly, things made sense to Sarah as she recalled Papineau’s video presentation during their initial mission briefing. ‘The tsunami.’
‘Yes,’ Jasmine said as she touched the waves, ‘the tsunami.’
On July 21, 365 AD, a magnitude eight earthquake rocked the Greek island of Crete, triggering a tsunami that devastated Alexandria. The surging water crushed buildings, flattened districts, and killed tens of thousands of people. It was the worst disaster in the history of the city and the greatest Egyptian tragedy since the biblical plagues.
Sarah pointed at the wall. ‘And you’re saying they knew it was coming?’
‘I’m not saying it. The symbols are saying it. That’s why they left.’
‘Then why take the effort to build a tunnel? Why the elaborate evacuation?’
‘They weren’t evacuating. They were smuggling.’
‘Smuggling? Smuggling what?’
Jasmine took a few steps back and shined her light on the horned man portrayed earlier in the pictograph. She moved the beam back, focusing on the large block carried by those in the tunnel. Finally, she stepped forward again and pressed her finger against the depiction of a waiting ship.
Sarah now realized what she had missed.
The hull of the ship was emblazoned with the head of a ram.
‘I’ll be damned. They moved Alexander’s tomb.’
McNutt had lost his bearings. Running through a maze of tunnels was hard on his sense of direction. Throw in a team of sword-wielding monkey men tracking him in the darkness, and he prayed that he wasn’t running in circles.
‘Hector, where the hell am I going?’
Garcia had been monitoring his location and was able to guide him through the passageways. ‘Keep going straight for another fifty feet. When you get to the next chamber, jump down one level and go to your left.’
McNutt never broke stride. There wasn’t time. He had seen the men chasing him, and if they were as fast as they were agile, he knew he was in trouble. He ran across the tops of the narrow arches with purpose.
‘Through the tunnel straight ahead of you,’ Garcia continued. ‘Then up two levels and cross to your right. Two more chambers.’
This was followed by Cobb’s reassurance that things were about to get a whole lot better. ‘Keep moving, McNutt. I’ll be waiting.’
Jumping down to lower levels was easy; climbing up was the greater challenge. When McNutt ascended, he was blind. He needed both hands to pull himself upward. Only after reaching the higher beam could he grab his flashlight and reestablish his vision.
‘Take the tunnel to your right. You’re almost there,’ Garcia said.
McNutt burst into the empty chamber where he paused, briefly, and surveyed his surroundings. He saw the reflection of his flashlight on the pool of water below and realized that he was in the flooded cistern — the final intact chamber. From there, it was either backtrack into the swarm of assassins or press ahead toward the void.
Regrettably, he didn’t like his choices.
Even worse, there was no sign of Cobb.
‘Jack!’ McNutt shouted.
He didn’t get the reply he was hoping for.
Suddenly, the three men who had been following him charged into the cistern. They were no more than twenty feet behind him, and they were closing fast.
McNutt swore he could hear them snarling like wolverines. They were ravenous, bloodthirsty creatures, driven by the thrill of the hunt.
He bolted for the final tunnel, hoping to use their aggression against them.
They don’t know about the sinkhole.
They won’t be expecting it.
Cobb heard his name as McNutt sprinted past him in the flooded cistern, but he wasn’t able to respond. He was far too busy holding his breath.
The tip of his gun emerged from the black water like a periscope, waiting for the enemy to cross his path — literally cross his path because he was hiding next to the only bridge that connected the entrance to the cistern and the exit on the far wall.
Cobb’s lungs began to burn, but he remained hidden.
His trigger finger quivered in anticipation.
A moment later, the assassins burst into the chamber. They spotted McNutt up ahead and continued their chase, realizing that he had only one avenue of escape. They were so intent on catching him that they failed to consider the possibility of an ambush.
The mistake cost them their lives.
Cobb rose from the depths like a leviathan. With fire in his lungs and ice in his veins, he calmly zeroed in on his targets.
Three shots boomed in the cistern.
Three splashes soon followed.
Each marked a watery grave.
28
Now it was Sarah’s turn to stare at the wall in disbelief. If Jasmine’s interpretation was correct, they knew how, when, and why Alexander’s tomb had left the city.
Someone had smuggled it out without anyone knowing.
Sarah then studied the multitude of supports that kept the tunnel’s roof from caving in. The level of reinforcement made a lot more sense now that she understood the true purpose of the tunnel. It was built to transport the world’s most precious cargo.
Jasmine continued her explanation. ‘I’m not trying to make light of the situation or overlook the number of lives that were lost, but the smugglers couldn’t have hoped for a better tragedy. A tsunami was the perfect cover.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘First,’ she said, ‘the ground started to rumble as the aftershocks reached the Egyptian coast. It didn’t have the impact of a full-blown earthquake, but the tremors would have been enough to get everyone’s attention.’
Sarah smiled, knowing what was to come: another one of Jasmine’s history lessons. But unlike most of her previous tales, Sarah was actually looking forward to it.
Jasmine did not disappoint. ‘You have to understand the setting. The religious views of the Roman Empire were in disarray. Emperor Constantine had pushed toward Christianity, but there were still a great many people who resisted the conversion. Chief among them was Emperor Julian, one of Constantine’s successors. In fact, in the era preceding the tsunami, Julian made every effort to renew the polytheistic belief system. He quickly replaced the so-called corrupt administration that Constantine had left behind and vowed to return the empire to the glory it once knew. After Julian’s death, his successors once again stressed Christian ideals, but there were many in the general public who were firmly rooted in the old beliefs.’
Sarah understood her point. ‘Those who believed in the pantheon of Roman gods would have seen the earthquake as a sign of divine intervention. They would have believed that the gods were angered by the adoption of Christianity, and the earthquake was proof of the gods’ displeasure. Maybe even a warning of things to come.’
‘Exactly,’ Jasmine replied. ‘And after the gods grabbed their attention by shaking the earth, they proved their glorious power by drawing back the waters of the sea. It’s said that creatures and ships alike were stranded in the muck as the water receded all along the coast. Then as thousands gathered to marvel at the sight, the gods buried them all with a surge of water large enough to flood the desert.’